


a mouse and a lion

by ReleaseTheSheep



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: A soupçon of angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, hardly even there, that's right I'm hopping on the quarantine fic train, with just the slightest dusting of angst, wives with deeply disparate personalities experience quarantine together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReleaseTheSheep/pseuds/ReleaseTheSheep
Summary: Anne is finding quarantine hard. Ann isn't.
Relationships: Anne Lister (1791-1840)/Ann Walker (1803-1854)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 78





	a mouse and a lion

**Author's Note:**

> This turned out more wistful than planned, but that feels appropriate.

Ann watched as her wife shut the bedroom door with a huff and climbed into bed with her. "What a glum day," Anne muttered, frowning and reaching for the journal under her nightstand.

Ann nuzzled against her and began pressing soft kisses to her neck, her jaw, nipping at her earlobe. She threw an arm over Anne's waist to trace up and down her side and over her ribs, and she felt the body under her start to relax bit by bit. She pressed one leg up over Anne's, crawling on top of her, one hand tangling in her thick, dark hair. 

Anne made the most delicious low growling noise. 

Ann smirked, savouring the effect she had on her wife, as always. "Better now?" 

Anne's eyes, which had slipped shut while Ann tended to her, opened again, and she took a deep breath. "Somewhat better," she husked. 

_Only somewhat?_ wondered Ann, her brow furrowing the tiniest amount. Usually by now Anne would have rolled them over and be kissing Ann fervently, pressing her back into the pillows and starting to roll her hips. But instead she was just looking up at Ann with a somewhat distant look on her face. It seemed the day had truly gotten to her. 

Ann sighed and rolled back over to her side of the bed. She watched Anne pull out her journal and pen and begin to write. She lay a hand on Anne's abdomen, which Anne picked up and absent-mindedly kissed as she scribbled away. That made Ann smile; at least her wife wasn't upset with her. 

She let Anne write for a while, admiring the sharp lines of her profile in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. The slope of her brow, the stark cut of her cheekbones and her jaw, the almost incongruously soft bow of her lips. Ann thought she could study Anne forever like this, one hand holding hers, the other keeping the battered journal in place against her knee and scrawling out the day's goings-on. They had been limited, of course. As had yesterday's, and the day before that. Only so much could truly go on when one was stuck in the house. 

It had been a number of weeks now, since the firm suggestion had been given that everyone stay indoors and avoid human contact in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. Ann had watched in dismay as her beloved wife, so at home striding about the countryside, paying calls and maintaining their property and making everyone sweat to keep up with her, always stretching to fill whatever space she was in at any time, shrank in on herself - the energy she had in spades going unburnt, seeming to pile up inside her until it choked her and made her irritable and short. Anne was a lionness in every sense of the word, Ann knew; she needed room to roam and range, to stalk and strut. And now she was caged, reduced to pacing and pawing and waiting around for mealtimes. The thought caused a prickle at the corner of Ann's eyes. 

She herself was more of a mouse, she thought wistfully. A homebody, content to stay in her warm, safe, little hole, away from the countless dangers and discomforts of the wider world. Strange how she and Anne seemed to fit so well together in certain aspects, and so poorly in others. She rubbed her thumb over their joined fingers, wishing the action could bring her wife as much comfort as when Anne did it to her. 

She saw Anne close her pen, slip it between the pages of her journal, and put the journal back down in its place next to the bed. Anne looked up at the ceiling and let out a breath, and the sound of it was so heavy and forlorn that Ann's tongue untied itself enough to at least try and provide some solace. 

"I know you don't like this, Pony. All this staying inside and not seeing people and that. You're not made for a short leash, and it saddens me to see what it does to you." Ann sat up and rearranged her body so that her head was resting in Anne's lap, looking up at her slightly drawn face. Anne looked as though she was about to reply but Ann pushed on, despite not quite knowing what she was saying or what was best to say, "I don't mind it so much. I get to see you every day, all day. I get to be around you even more than usual. I get to stay all cosy and holed up with the woman I love, and not have to talk to anyone else at all." She reached up to lay a hand on the side of Anne's face, and couldn't help but smile as she felt Anne lean into her touch. She gazed into Anne's molasses-dark eyes, entranced by them as always. She continued, "I get to look into these eyes all the time. My favourite eyes in the whole wide world. The only ones I'm ever interested in looking into anyway." She bit her lip then, having run out of things to say, and conscious that she hadn't given Anne any reason to feel better about being cooped up and sick with cabin fever. 

But, as she frequently did, Anne surprised her. Deft fingers snaked into Ann's blonde locks, splayed over her lap, and Anne leant down to capture her wife's lips in a tender kiss. "I hadn't thought of it that way at all," she said, her voice low and smoky like evening. "Foolish of me; to have you completely to myself these last weeks and to have been too caught up in my own boredom and anxiety to take proper advantage of that." She held Ann to her, sliding her hands under Ann's nightshirt to knead into her back, kissing wetly down her throat and tonguing at her collarbone. Ann felt wonderful in Anne's arms; better than she had in days, and she didn't feel as though she'd been suffering while they were in isolation. But now she felt safe, and loved - desired, wanted, needed - and cared for, and really quite aroused-

Anne pulled away for a moment to take Ann in. "Your eyes are very pretty too," she breathed after a moment, grinning. "In a certain light."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Hit me up on tumblr at [release-the-sheep](release-the-sheep.tumblr.com) if you want to talk about these two and anticipate season 2 together. Also, comments are lovely :3


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